Tortoise and the Hare II
by Dusk Fox
Summary: The most pointless sequal to a fable almost ever.


The result of an English class assignment. Most pointless continuation of a fable I could come up with.

Tortoise and the Hare II the Movie: Now With Long, Clunky Title Extension

Our new dramatic and officially licensed tale, while interesting and thought provoking, cannot be told without a bit of the back-story. At a point, say, five some odd years ago, there took place the race of the century. At least that is what it was called at the time and ended up being quite untrue, as that year's Daytona 500 was particularly thrilling. The competition was between two of the most mismatched racers ever to see the light of day: an unsettlingly hyperactive hare and an outwardly modest, yet inwardly conceded tortoise.

The outcome, of course, was that the hare, named Steve, tired himself out dashing here and there, while the tortoise, named Byron, won the day by going along slowly and steadily. This great victory had several nice benefits—sponsor contracts, TV appearances, shoe commercials, and the like—that allowed Byron to retire comfortably. This is not his story.

Stephen H.W.-M. Hare had a bit of a different time of things following the loss. Not one to let reality get him down, he immediately set about downing so many drinks that he had been kicked out of every bar within a two mile radius and thought he was in love with a light post. The relationship did not last however, as she was cold and not sensitive to his needs. An atomic hangover the next morning brought clarity to his current situation as he saw it: life sucked and there was nothing he could do about it.

It turned out that someone else could in fact do something about it . . . at least inadvertently. That someone just so happened to be mugging a young female field mouse—that, while it has no significance to the story, was named Molly—a short distance away.­ She screamed for help and the attacker ran off with his pilfered goods, in the direction of Steve. By now, Steve was feeling slightly more uppity and energetic. A bit more like himself. When he heard the scream, he jolted into action the best he could. Rising unsteadily up, he struck what he believed to be a valiant pose (witnesses would later disagree) and prepared to stop the mugger.

He said, in the most important sounding voice he could muster at the time, "Stop in the name of the flippin' law! If you don't, I'll need to. . . blast, what the devil was it? Ah, yes! I'll need to apprehend you! And that of course—" At which point he promptly passed out with a solid _thwack_.

He fell at just the right angle with just the right amount of force and just the right amount of luck that he struck the one spot, two molecules wide, which compromised the structural integrity of his girlfriend, and sent it crashing down. The robber had time to let out a cry that was something like, "_Blaaarg!_" before getting thoroughly conked on the head by the falling post. The town and all the citizens that cared were indeed quite happy. The young mouse retrieved her possessions, the light post received a medal of bravery, and Steve received a bill for damaging city property.

Steve cursed his luck. It was discrimination. It had to be. Either against hares or losers, whichever would get him more sympathy. He supposed the wallabies down south or the gerbils out east did not catch this kind of crap when they failed to perform.

"Bloody hell," he grumbled to himself. "Looks like I really am a washed up bum that ain't good for nothin' anymore."

At that exact moment, he was shoved from behind into a black vehicle that he had not noticed before. He found himself face to face with four serious looking foxes in dark suits. One of them stared at him for a few moments as the car got underway before speaking.

"Mr. Hare, we are with the Government. We could like to speak with you if you don't mind."

"S-sure . . . Why not? It'll be. . . umm, fun." Steve said nervously. He somehow felt as though he did not have much of a choice.

Well, as it turns out, the mugger Steve nabbed was found to be a wanted criminal, and later identified by the Government as an international arms-dealer. While everyone in town had blamed Steve for the incident, the Government became very interested in him. They felt that if they could harness his bad luck, they could use him to lure high-profile criminals out of hiding. When that did not work, they just gave him a gun and told him to have at it. Today, he is as close to the anthropomorphic animal version of James Bond as one can get without copyright infringement. With that, we come to the moral of our story. In his own special little way, Steve has been able to show us that losing sometimes is not half bad.

Fin.


End file.
